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Underrated

July 11th, 2019

Overlooked.

Joe is starting to believe the Bucs have a star on their roster, and he’s not even a full-time starter.

Think about it, the Bucs have Mike Evans, one of the best receivers in the game. Since 2016, Evans has the fourth-most receiving touchdowns in the game (25). He’s putting up Hall of Fame numbers and Joe is not using hyperbole here. He’s a first down machine.

Now if Joe had told you Evans (or any other receiver) had, say, the eighth-most touchdowns in the NFL through the last three seasons, you’d say that’s damn good and likely be confident the Bucs have one of the best in the game, right?

Well, the Bucs do have such a person. And he’s not even a full-time starter. And he’s not expected to be a full-time starter.

Hell, he’s not even a receiver.

Ladies and gentlemen, let Joe introduce you to Cameron Brate!

Joe was sifting through Twitter and ran across how Brate is among the league leaders in touchdowns the past three seasons. Joe checked that with the reliable Pro Football Reference and voila! Brate is tied with five other players with 20 touchdowns the past three seasons.

Not a receiver, mind you. A tight end. The only tight end who has more touchdowns than Brate is Kansas City’s Travis Kelce with 22. Brate’s 20-touchdown total is nearly double that of malcontent wide receiver DeSean Jackson (11).

Brate may be the most underrated player in the NFL, certainly among tight ends. All the folks typing about the Bucs from faraway places like Boston and Cleveland and posh upper-east side condos in Manhattan, where the ivory tower types look down from their balconies at the hordes of the unwashed pushing themselves down the sidewalks, write constantly about how O.J. Howard will light up the NFL. And he very well may do just that.

When is the last time you read a peep about Brate from these same types?

His touchdowns are Great but he is not a blocking TE. With D. Smith needing a blocking TE on his side when he is facing a speed rusher (which you will see right away with Smith facing speed rusher Dee Ford in our first game with the 49ers) you will likely see Auclair start on that side to chip Ford and then go out for passes and Auclair is an inch taller than Brate and can catch passes too as well as block. Give Auclair as many TD targets as Brate and Auclair could get more TDs than Brate because his heavier weight would allow him to brace against a CB trying to come over his back and knock down the pass.

Not an elite blocker. Not over sized or an elite athlete. Just gets to the right spots and makes catches – especially contested catches – more often than not.

In the red zone that’s been conducive to a lot of tight window type box out TDs where he/Winston have a good chemistry.

We still need to run this offense through Evans/Godwin/Howard.

When we get in red zone it’ll be great having the 2 TE set and having Evans/Godwin/Howard/Brate all on the field. That’s 4 players who can win contested catches in traffic so you just pick your best matchup.

On the 5th day of the league year this year, NONE of Brate’s contract was guaranteed. None! So a BACKUP TE coming off of major hip labrum surgery, prudently gets released, then re-signed by a COMPETENT G.M. to a $ 3 million base salary, plus game roster bonus and production incentives above that, for a 2019 backup TE who doesn’t block, in a system (BA’s) that does NOT utilize 2 TE sets hardly ever if ever. That’s…what a competent GM would do.

And for any noise that you all would reference on well “Licht doesn’t believe in asking players essentially to take pay cuts yada yada”…well that fat buffoon is why (with his shoddy drafting and BOY SCOUT TROOP like kumbaya mantra)…is why we are in salary cap h3ll !!

This is a professional sport, and Brate would be LUCKY to get that anywhere else! The buffoon SHOULD be running his contractual philosophy like Howie Roseman, Les Snead, Chris Ballard, Thomas Dimitroff…etc. It’s a business, do your job player X, or get out and you’ll get paid what we decide to pay you.Licht continues to try and build goodwill for players to later contribute to his food stamp fund on the unemployment line.

Yes he is. It’s also crazy how buc fans want to trade him cuz we have O.J. don’t get me wrong Howard is a beast an there’s not one defender who can cover him not even jalen Ramsey but the dude hasn’t finished a full season let’s go Bucs #endthedrought

Can’t believe all the Brate hate from supposed fans. WTF is dissing a 20 touchdown TE. And to top it all off he was playing with a torn labrum all last season and struggled thru the pain all 16 games. Some Bucs fans are really pathetic.

How good would Jameis be if he had Tom Brady’s group of pass catchers to throw to? And how good would Mariota be if he had our group? Jameis is performing at his current level with the best WR and TE position groups in the league. And everyone is waiting on him to play better.

Brate is a good TE, it’s why they kept him over bringing back Hump. Is he a star? No. OJ is a star. Brate is a solid/good TE with good hands that could start for the majority of teams in the NFL. Having him AND OJ on the team is huge. But once OJ gets hurt, if Brate becomes the focus of the defense, he can be shutdown pretty easily since he lacks that top end athleticism – as we’ve seen repeatedly. But for most teams in the NFL that holds true for their starter, so it’s not really a knock, but the star hype is a bit much. In any case he’s who I’d keep when the choice is him or Hump.

if these bums joe slobbers over daily were so good why in the hell have they spent their entire careers in the basement smiling and making excuses… the only thing that can be said accurately pertaining to Brate is they have LOST WITH HIM! everything else is irrelevant if you lose.

Rod Munch I don’t think it’s fair to say Brate can easily be shut down when you look back at his 2016 performance. Most yards reception and TDs in his career & no OJ. Aside from that the weapons we had on offense that season was a far cry from what we had in 2017 & 2018. Seem to remember a whole weapon for Winston campaign that off-season.

Respectfully disagree Joe. Cam Brate is currently serving a 6-year, $40.8 mil sentence with the Bucs. Every 3 years that amounts to $20.4 mil or roughly $1 mil per TD. I don’t exactly call that being disrespected.

Or look at it another way. Cam has 135 catches in the past 3 years. That’s a tad over $150,000 per catch. Poor Cam. In reality though, there aren’t that many WRs or TEs in the NFL who make that much $$$ per catch.

It’s humorous that just a couple weeks ago a number of JBFers were dangling Brate as trade bait to get a Rb or an OLineman or just to save $$$ for next year. Funny what a difference a little bit of positive press makes.

I hope he’s healthy, and stays that way. He’s a good player, but Licht overpaid for him like he’s done with to many other players in the past. All that salary cap money Licht has spent with back to back 5-11 seasons says it all. The numbers don’t lie.

Brate’s RESULTS are superior as Joe has pointed out to all but one of those guys who earn far more than Brate.

And so Brate…second leading TD producer at TE…making 60% of what the top five guys each earn annually should take a pay cut to 3 million? Really? This means he’d be earning 30% as much as guys whose production he doubles. He HAS VALUE!!!

Once again T-m-a-xi pad doesn’t know what he’s talking about an the rest of these haters ain’t got nothing better to do then hate. To hate on a guy that played thru a injury that no ones else plays thru an he’s the only consistent red zone threat geez ppl y’all ain’t the smartest tools in the shed the only other TE to have more TD catches then Brate is Kielce that’s great company to be in. JOE kick these dumb fans there opinions don’t count when there that dumb

Tmax just does that to get under y’all’s skin. Haven’t you heard “don’t feed the trolls”? I think he’s funny and often has valid points. I think the Bucs are going to be good. Maybe it’s the optimism a the beginning of every season, but this one feels a little different. I’d be lying if I said wasn’t worried about the offensive line though. Koetter and his play calling didn’t do them any favors either. Yet when Monk was calling plays with Fitz at the helm, the line was fine and they lit up the score board. We will see and BA is as good as you’ll find for running an offense. Yo Yo Yo Bucs!